What did scientists know and say about climate change and global warming in the 1970s? I keep running into claims by modern climate change denialists that scientists in the 1970s firmly predicted a pending ice age. This is usually posited to establish that scientists are fools, and that concerns about warming now are probably displaced because the same scientists were in error 40 years ago.
I worked in air pollution studies way back then. That’s not how I remember it at all. I remember great, good-natured debates between Ph.Ds in the Department of Biology at the University of Utah, and other scientists from other institutions passing through and working in the field with us. Greenhouse effect was very well understood even back then, and the discussions were on the nature of just how much human pollution would affect climate, and in which way.
Savvy scientists then well understood that there were two competing trends in air pollution: Greenhouse gases and particulates and aerosols. Greenhouse gases would warm the climate, but they were offset by particulates and aerosols that reflect solar radiation back into space before warming can occur. At least, back then, the particulates and aerosols counteracted the greenhouse gases.
EPA collection, Manhattan skyline enveloped in heavy smog, May 1973: Chester Higgins/NARA. via Mother Jones
Looking for something else, I took off my shelf a book we used as a text in air pollution courses at the University of Utah in the 1970s, Whatever Happened to Fresh Air? by Michael Treshow. Treshow taught at Utah. He was deeply involved in several research projects on air pollution. He was also a great conversationalist and competitive tennis player. His book was a good text, but he intended it to be read by lay people, especially policy makers, also. It’s easy to fathom, intentionally so.
Here, below, is what Treshow wrote in the early pages about carbon dioxide as an air pollutant, in sketching the global problems of air pollution. Notice that, while he makes note of the predictions of what would happen with uncontrolled particulate and aerosol pollution, he gives the science straight up, telling what pollution can do, depending on local circumstances and global circumstances. Treshow notes the research that the denialists cite now, but he explains enough of the science so that any reasonable person should be able to see that, if one form of pollution is controlled and another is not, the effects might be different.
Michael Treshow:
Over the past several million years, the earth’s animal and plant life have reached a workable equilibrium in sharing this atmosphere and keeping the oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations in balance. But man, by burning fossil fuels (particularly coal) at an accelerated rate and by removing vegetation at the prodigious rate of 11 acres per second in the U.S., may be upsetting this equilibrium. Many scientists believe this carbon dioxide build-up is one of the major threats to man’s environment.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is occasionally regarded as an air pollutant for this reason, even though it is a natural and essential component of the atmosphere. Certainly the present concentrations are not dangerous; but what would happen if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should increase appreciably? What hazards would be imposed?
An increase in carbon dioxide would benefit the green plants since they need it for photosynthesis. But what effect would it have on man and animals? Or on the physical environment? The main hazard lies in the effect that carbon dioxide has in absorbing the infrared radiation which normally radiates from the earth back to the atmosphere. If the carbon dioxide content of the lower atmosphere were to increase, it would prevent the infrared heat absorbed by the earth from the sun from reradiating into the atmosphere. Heat energy would accumulate and cause a general increase in the earth’s temperature. Such an increase in temperature, often called the “greenhouse effect,” could cause the ice caps to melt, raising the level of the oceans and flooding most of the world’s major cities.
It is awesome to realize that sea level is actually rising. It is now 300 feet above what it was 18,000 years ago, and is reportedly rising nearly nine inches higher each century. Beaches are being wasted away and tides lap ever closer to the steps of coastal homes. But is the displacement of our beaches more closely related to increasing carbon dioxide concentrations or to the normal warming process between ice ages?
Not everyone agrees that carbon dioxide is to blame. Concentrations vary greatly around the world. Near urban areas, where fossil fuels are burned, concentrations are high; over forested areas, where plants are rapidly removing the gas, they are low. Concentrations also vary with the height above the ground, the latitude, whether over the ocean or land and even with the time of day and season of the year. All of these variables make it difficult to agree on a reasonable average carbon dioxide concentration.
Despite some disagreement, it is generally conceded that carbon dioxide has been added to the atmosphere at an alarming rate during the past century. Actual measurements show that between 1857 and 1956, carbon dioxide concentrations increased from an average of 0.0293 to 0.0319 percent; 360 X [10 to the 9th] tons of carbon dioxide have been added to the atmosphere by man during this period. Upwards of a trillion tons will be added by the year 2000. Such a tremendous release of carbon dioxide would increase the atmospheric concentrations appreciably unless some mechanism is available to absorb the surplus and to maintain equilibrium.
Extensive measurements suggest that carbon dioxide concentrations near the earth’s surface have increased about 10 percent since 1900. During this same time, fossil fuel consumption increased about 15 percent. This is a remarkably, close, meaningful relationship. The 5 percent difference is readily accounted for, since this much would be absorbed by the ocean or by rocks and living organisms, particularly plants, which absorb much of the surplus carbon dioxide. In fact, green plants probably have the capacity to absorb and utilize far more carbon dioxide than man is likely to release.
Calculations presented by Gordon MacDonald of the University of California at Santa Barbara show that a 10 percent increase in the total carbon dioxide content theoretically should cause an increase of 0.4° F in the average temperature of the earth. Although the carbon dioxide content is being increased about 0.06 percent each year by the combustion of fossil fuels, no temperature increase has been demonstrated. Rather, the average temperature appears to be decreasing. During the past 25 years, when the addition of carbon dioxide has been most rapid, the average temperature has dropped half a degree.
This temperature drop has been thought to result from the increase in the amount of submicron sized particulates which remain suspended in the atmosphere. These aerosols obstruct the entrance of the sun’s heat and light rays, thereby disrupting the earth’s energy balance. The effect is one of less heat and lower temperatures. Dr. William E. Cobb of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency predicts the possibility of another ice age.
Whatever Happened to Fresh Air, Michael Treshow, University of Utah Press, 1971, pp. 3-6.
What changed since then? The Clean Air Act provided the legal drive to clean particulates and aerosols out of the air. Alas, we did not then have good controls for greenhouse gases. The success of the Clean Air Act, and similar laws worldwide, rather left the pollution field open for greenhouse gases. Without pollution to offset the effects of GHG, warming became the stronger trend.
I think Treshow was quite prescient back then. His work is still accurate, when we adjust for the events of history that came after he wrote the book.
Time Magazine cover for January 27, 1967, photo by Larry Lee. The photo shows a typical Los Angeles day at 3:30 p.m., with photochemical smog restricting visibility dramatically. Particulate pollution and sulfates added to the visibility problems, and made air pollution a greater health hazard. An accompanying story was titled, “Ecology: The Menace in the Skies.”
It’s popular among those opposed to the science of climate change to claim scientists don’t know what they’re talking about, because ‘back in the 1970s they predicted a new ice age, and they were wrong.’
Dr. Treshow’s book presents the state of the science of air pollution in the early 1970s. He didn’t “predict” an ice age. He noted that particulate pollution was a major problem, and that particulates and other pollution created a cooling effect that could offset and perhaps overpower the warming effects of CO2, as he discusses in the passage above. In lay terms, in a few brief passages, Treshow notes the conflicting results of different types of pollution.
CO2’s warming effects were well known, and acknowledged. If particulates and other aerosols won the battle to pollute the skies, the Earth would cool. If GHGs won the battle, the Earth would warm.
Claiming scientists “predicted” an ice age tells only half the story, and thereby becomes a grossly misleading, whole lie.
More:
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Also se the peer reviewed article linked below.
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Thanks for the link!
BTW, did you move your blog? Or is it dormant?
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I see there has been quite a bit of fussing over whether scientists in the 1970s predicted cooling. There is no need for it. Peterson, Connelly and Fleck did a very thorough literature search and put this issue to rest some time back: https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1
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Interesting confirmation report. https://twitter.com/thepoodleofdoom/status/1170373541444894720?s=21
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Yeah, Black Flag disappeared. Not sure why. Not particularly troubled. I think he shows up from time to time with great snark in anonymous posts. Time demonstrates his errors, with more data rolling in than even he can fib about, every day.
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I was about to remark on Black Flag’s comments, but I see now that they are four years old and adequately rebutted already.
For anyone genuinely interested in climate models and how good they are (hint: pretty good), RealClimate has a well-referenced FAQ at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/
As to Ed’s fine post, I will simply urge that the interested reader go to the Skeptical Science link, then click through to the first link in that post to read Peterson, Connelley and Fleck’s paper on the myth of the 1970s cooling consensus. It remains the gold standard for debunking that particular myth.
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Still? I think it’s a continuing crisis, and it’s morphed. Maybe.
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And my apologies to James – my last post was in reply to Dale
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James[Dale]No, sir.
You are the one here doing the arguing – not them.
You are attempting to use the FALLACY of PLEA to AUTHORITY, that is, you have no argument yourself and in desperation, merely repeat the words of other men that you do NOT know, NOT understand, and DO NOT comprehend.
As far as these “scientists”, they have been refuted on mass – but that means YOU would have to go and read them too, BUT YOU WILL NOT – as already demonstrated.
I posted a link which has proven the failure of models to provide climate science – and I am positive you either have NOT read it, or read it and refused to comprehend it.
Utter crackpottery!
I have explained the very reason of the systems of physics to why it is impossible to do what you continue to claim it can do.
It is bluntly obvious you do not understand this.
,
Utter crackpottery!
We know IT DOES
We do not know “HOW”!! and to the “EXTENT” of such interactions!
You are too bizarre and broad in claiming knowledge that no man has.
Correct.
We are no more successful in modeling the past then we are modeling the future – because the same laws of physics operated in the past as it does now – and they are immutable, and chaotic.
The ONLY way we are able to “model” the past is to put in the real dataset into the machine and to have it repeat such back to us – but this is NOT modeling at all, but merely regurgitation of information.
You confuse data with modeling
If I gave you a large list of numbers – representing some factual measurement of something – and asked “Please tell me the next set of numbers for a given future” – you would be wholly unable to do it, true?
You may attempt to glean some pattern – but what if the pattern is chaotic? Do you believe you would be successful?
Do not confuse the mere accumulation of some data set with having the ability to predict anything about that dataset
.
You are a very ignorant man and do not know what you are talking about.
You made a claim above regarding climate is “physics and chemistry” and then a paragraph or so later you make a claim that it is “regional and environmental”.
It other words, it is what ever you need it to be as required by your crackpottery.
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Black Flag claims:
MY failure to prove my claim? No, you are asserting that all those climatologists who use computer modeling are failures.
What you ignore is that those models are based firmly on the known laws of chemistry and physics. We know how the sun affects the atmosphere and the oceans, we know how water vapor and carbon dioxide interact with each other and all other substances, and we know that various forms of land may reflect sunlight. We can make predictions based on our understanding of these physical and chemical laws and as the results come in from our studies, we improve our models. Saying we cannot model climate is like saying we cannot model anything in Earth’s distant past. I guess all those science books with maps of Earth hundreds of millions of years ago should be thrown out.
Black Flag then blows away what little credibility he had with this:
Sheer stupidity here! CLIMATE involves regional and long term environmental factors, while WEATHER involves short term and local environmental factors. Chaos theory is why meteorologists cannot predict exact weather patterns beyond a few weeks. Chaos theory simply does not apply to CLIMATE at all! When you look at long term and global matters, the local and short term variations tend to smooth out, leaving a general description that can change gradually over time. Much like saying that while you cannot predict the exact date of someone’s death, you can say that the life expectancy of someone born today is about 80 years, but in the past it was shorter. Chaos theory is simply not an issue when it comes to climatology. Never was, never will be.
In short, you are flatly DELUSIONAL. Your black flag deserves to be burned to the ground!
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Dale,
Now that we have established where the onus of such proof sits (on the “positive” existence of something), the scientific method further provides that the “negative” existence of that something refutes the hypothesis”.
Scientific method requires a positive proof AND that such proof cannot be falsified
In other words, no matter what “proof” you provide, all that is necessary is one falsification, and your hypothesis is refuted.
Thus, my link that has been provided gives numerous conditions to why computer models cannot model Earth’s climate – including the one I’ve already presented: the Earth’s Climate can only be expressed as a Navier-Stokes equation, which is an equation that solves a problem with an answer that creates a new problem that needs another Navier-Stokes equation to solve.
In other words, you cannot solve the equation to any deterministic value – there cannot be “an answer” – thus, any computer model that uses this N-S equation will never provide an answer, and runs endlessly in a recursive loop
(Line 1 – goto to Line 2
Line 2 – goto to Line 1)
Thus, all computer models use a STATIC value to represent this equation – which MUST create a variation between reality and the model.
Chaos theory dictates that such uses of static values will create significant variation between the model and reality to the degree that the model can never be used as a predictive tool, nor can ever be representative of reality in any way.
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Dale,
To be clear to you and help you understand the scientific method.
YOU must provide the proof of your claim that YOUR computer model actually models the Earth’s climate.
I do NOT need to prove it does not – your FAILURE to demonstrate your claim is SUFFICIENT to disprove your claim.
This is the “Null Hypothesis Methodology” of all science.
You cannot claim the side of the “Null” because you are claiming something that is “not-Null” – that is, you are claiming into the positive …. an existence of something (that being a model) and a hypothesis that this something is representative (it models Earth’s climate)…..
As I make no such claim (the “Null”), I have nothing to prove.
I hope that clears up “who has to find what”……
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Dale
You do not read the links I already provided, thus, I doubt you will read any link I provide, so I shall not waste my time.
Not really, but it doesn’t poison the crops either.
Tell me, do you eat your fertilizer regularly??
Duh.
So what other part of your crackpot theory should I not take “literally”?
All of it, I think!
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Black Flag claimed:“It is impossible for a computer to model the Earth climate”
Please show the peer reviewed studies that show this to be the case. Your dogmatic assumptions count for nothing.
He also said:Human feces is a dangerous pollutant and if you use in your farm you will poison human beings
This is why we use COW feces called manure and NOT humans.
Would you EAT cow feces? Would you add it as an ingredient to your food at any time? No, you were just dodging my direct response instead of dealing honesty with it. You fool no one with such phony rhetoric but yourself.
This idiot also said, “How can a greenhouse effect have an effect when the physics is not a greenhouse???? I do not have a clue to what you are talking about, since the earth is not a greenhouse.”
We have already explained that the term “greenhouse effect” is not to be taken literally. Your stonewalling and refusal to deal with the actual issue of that effect is pathetic.
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[…] which is a good chunk of why we're where we are now with climate change. #ddtbEmbedded Link What were scientists saying about global warming in 1971? What did scientists know and say about climate change and global warming in the 1970s? I keep […]
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Ed,
hahhahaah
Of course it is “round” … it is OVAL!
“Round” is a geometric definition of a shape with no corners…..
Nice try, Ed.
Sun/star … they are synonymous.
Nice try, Ed.
Your attempt to appear like an idiot is working.
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While you’re at it, BF, you may want to note that the Earth bulges a bit south of the equator. That’s right: The Earth is not round! Therefore, with your logic, it’s impossible to orbit an Earth that is NOT ROUND!
Also, you should probably note that the Sun is not a Sun, but is instead a star. Oh, my goodness! We have to start all of our observations over again! We thought it was solar science, but now we know it’s stellar science!
By the way, have you ever been to a greenhouse? Yeah, that’s right: They’re not green, they’re clear.
So in all of our wrongs against your grammatical idiocy, we’ll have to start misnaming it “the clearhouse effect.”
Oh! The humanity. Or maybe it’s the humidity.
You are partly right: There is a comprehension issue involved. For example, this guy claims not to understand why he’s being treated that way. We have nearly 200 posts here to show him. I think he’s untrainable.
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Dale Husband,
” The moron Black Flag said:
It is a fact that they made such predictions [about a coming ice age].
It is also a fact that they were wrong.
There were a few scientists who said that, but not nearly the majority like those that agree now that Earth’s climate is warming.”
I do not know how many scientists either way said what. Back in the 1970s and 80s I used to receive Natural History Magazine. I recall an issue where they talked about the coming ice age and strategies for living through it . They had an article about the year with out a summer in 1816.
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Ed,
It isn’t a grammar issue – it is a comprehension issue from which you are hiding from by using terms and words inappropriately
You are immune to knowledge, and entrench yourself deeper into nonsense when confronted by knowledge.
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Ed,
You go right ahead you and your shit on your garden – I ain’t stoppin’ ya!
Enjoy your cholera!
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Hey, I’m not the one arguing that a grammar issue means science doesn’t work. I’m not the one who doesn’t know manure. I don’t think those words come close to meaning what you think they mean, Black Flag.
Repeat this: “The London Underground is not a resistance movement. Aristotle is not a famous Belgian philosopher.”
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You know, there’s really no polite way to put this. Did you see Black Flag say this?
Clear evidence for anyone who pays attention to evidence, a confession of sorts from Black Flag, that he doesn’t know shit.
Excuse my English. (Nor should this be taken as a suspension or alteration of this blog’s usual prohibition of even gentle profanity. Accuracy, you know.)
Facts: See Cecil Adams back in 2006. Here is a “how-to” guide to using human manure on your garden. For much of the past 30 years we’ve used Milorganite — it’s a superior, bio-activated product that will make your lawn healthier than you are. You can buy the stuff, probably locally, and use it in your garden. (Milwaukee still has enough heavy industry using the sewer system that they discourage its use on your vegetables — heavy metals issues.) Years ago, before China and the U.S. had fully normalized relations, a delegation of Chinese diplomats asked to tour Blue Plains, the largest sewage processing facility in the U.S. A key issue for the plant for years had been what to do with the literal mountains of dried sludge that covered a huge acreage outside of Washington, D.C. One of the Chinese diplomats was noted as being ecstatic, and saying something like, ‘Your fields must be very fertile, and your crops abundant.’ Blue Plains finally got the message.
By showing us that he doesn’t know shit, Black Flag once again demonstrates there is no fact, no point of science, no issue of discussion that he is not a troll about. He has no compunction against saying stuff that is completely false, illogical, or misleading in the most degrading way.
I hesitate to ask him whether he knows the difference between a burro and a burrow.
“Black Flag: The man who certifiably does not know shit.”
(God bless those who hand us straight lines without knowing it.)
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Ed,
*Eeek*
Irrational Ed on the loose!
Ok, so even though you have in front of you a paper the presents the physics – you use this to even more entrench yourself in ignorance about it.
How can a greenhouse effect have an effect when the physics is not a greenhouse????
I do not have a clue to what you are talking about, since the earth is not a greenhouse.
But it does, Ed – because you have to understand the atmospheric thermodynamics to understand Co2 and how it does (and does not) emit radiation.
But as long as you hide behind an ideologically created concept in replacement to the actual physics, you create an immunity to knowledge – which is the precise difficulty you have.
You then build up a series of beliefs under this ideology, immune to knowledge about the truth – and then promote dangerous and ill-thought solutions to something that does not exist.
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So what? The greenhouse effect still goes on. It makes life possible on this planet in the first place. That it is an analogy in its title neither nullifies the scientific verification of its existence nor lessens its potentially damaging effects.
A rose by any other name, you know? Greenhouse effect, by any name, is a serious problem for us today.
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Ed,
Read the link I’ve provided and learn something today.
To repeat
(1)There are NO COMMON PHYSICAL LAWS between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse eff ect, which explains the relevant physical
phenomena. The terms “greenhouse eff ect” and “greenhouse gases” ARE A DELIBERATE MISNOMERS.
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Ed,
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It’s not called “the greenhouse.” It’s called “the greenhouse effect,” and it’s what makes life possible on this planet. If it gets out of hand, say with an unholy and non-natural boost from human pollution emissions, it becomes problematic.
Your hubris makes the rest of us look like geniuses.
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Ed, Dale, Scoorge
Here’s the physics
Click to access 0707.1161v4.pdf
Excerpt from the Physicist Summary:
(1)There are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse eff ect, which explains the relevant physical
phenomena. The terms “greenhouse eff ect” and “greenhouse gases” are deliberate misnomers.
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Discovery learning!
1. Trouble comes, not from what we don’t know, but instead from what we know, that ain’t so.
2. Black Flag said:
3. Except, of course, that’s not exactly accurate. Scientists who studied the issue made much different findings, much earlier than most people think. Columbus knew the world was round, for example.
But just try to tell any of that to the guy who knows more about science than any scientist, more about history than any historian, and who knows, just knows, that everyone else is wrong, and he is right.
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Ed,
Ed, neither the atmosphere, nor the Earth is a greenhouse.
Your lack of science understand undermines you.
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Nice to see your name around. Haven’t heard from you in a while.
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Seriously? If there were no greenhouse effect, the Earth would be a ball of ice. Permanently frozen.
The greenhouse effect makes life possible on this planet.
Now you claim it doesn’t exist? We’re all imagining every bit of existence?
Peyote good this year in your area?
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Dale,
*blink*
So you think 2+2=5, and have reached a different conclusion that the rest of us must respect.
No, there not a different math for Ed – he did not know about logarithmic effects of CO2 – hence, completely overestimated its effects – and based on his lack of knowledge – massive overestimated its consequences, and started spewing solutions to a non-problem.
You are an irrational man.
There is no such thing as a “greenhouse” effect in Earth’s atmosphere. If you want to discuss science, start using the terms and understanding, not some roadside gutter spew.
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Dale,
Gee, Dale, its good to see Ed is not alone in his religion!
It’s always good to see idiots congregate – it keeps them in from playing in traffic.
a problem with climate change caused by greenhouse emissions only got worse.
More irrational spew – you have no proof to make your claim – heck, you think the earth is a greenhouse!
There is no “majority” who say so – it is a lie of your zealots.
And whether or not every scientist says so, makes no on wit of difference – an error is not multiplied into the truth by the number of times a lie is repeated.
For 1,000 years – “scientist” thought the sun traveled around the earth – oh, sorry, you didn’t know that either??
Only to the ignorant.
It is NOT a chemical phenomenon – it is law of PHYSICS
And the imprecise term IS a problem, because ignorant people assume certain qualities of an effect that are NOT true = as you have done.
Idiot, no one denies that atmospheric warming by emission of radiation but you do not know a damn thing about it – and merely mouth what ever thing is spewed into your head.
Garbage in, Garbage out.
*cough*
No, a pollutant is something detrimental to life – and CO2 is required for life
By your idiotic understanding everything is a pollutant and the term is meaningless
God, I hope you are not a farmer.
Human feces is a dangerous pollutant and if you use in your farm you will poison human beings
This is why we use COW feces called manure and NOT humans.
He believes there is an average that must be maintained – that, sir, is a concept called static
Learn to us google and learn for yourself.
That is the problem – you are ignorant, and lazy.
You do not know, and don’t bother to learn, so you merely mouth others and pretend you know.
Because science does not use stupid, subjective terminology as it is utterly devoid of meaning.
Because you are ignorant of chaos, and chaos theory, nor do you understand mathematics, nor do you understand Naviar-Stokes equations, you will not understand -at all- this next sentence.
It is impossible for a computer to model the Earth climate
Making up solutions for problems that do not exist creates incredibility damaging and dangerous problems.
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Black Flag attacks Ed by saying
You ASSUME he does not know the math, physics, chemistry, and geology because he reaches a different conclusion from you. But you haven’t proven Ed ignorant yet and have only shown how arrogant YOU are! Show us the evidence that the greenhouse effect is not real, that CO2 is in no way a “greenhouse gas”. Can you?
Looking at your own blog, I infer that you are motivated not by scientific integrity, but by right-wing political bias.
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Gee, Ed, these global warming denialists just love to beat the phony drums, don’t they?
Note that they ignored the actual point of your blog entry above: The Clean Air Act limited one form of pollution, but not another, and as a result a problem with climate change caused by greenhouse emissions only got worse. This means we must deal with ALL forms of pollution, not just the kinds we can see!
The moron Black Flag said:
There were a few scientists who said that, but not nearly the majority like those that agree now that Earth’s climate is warming.
Which is meaningless. Using an imprecise term to refer to a chemical phenomenon doesn’t mean the phenomenon is not real. Try doing experiments to show it is not real and then subject the results to peer review. Can you?
ANYTHING can be a pollutant if it doesn’t belong somewhere and does harm in relation to other chemicals. For example, you would certainly consider dissolved human feces to be a pollutant in drinking water, but it makes great fertilizer on farmlands.
Did Ed say the equilibrium was absolutely static? No, I don’t think so. Your assumption that it would have to be for global warming to be real is just that.
Please cite your source, BF!
And you know this because……
And if you are so sure of that, why not try to create a computer model that CAN model Earth’s climate correctly? It is one thing to nitpick and naysay another’s work, it is another to come up with a better solution, which even Dr. Kevin Trenberth seems to have done. Why not? I’m interested in practical solutions, not lame denials.
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Ed,
It’s called glacial isostatic adjustment –
See, that’s the thing – you are ignorant of many of the natural forces all around you.
You here some zealot somewhere preach doom and you go into hysteria.
You do not know the math.
You do not know the physics.
You do not know the chemistry.
You do not know the geology.
But you believe you know the answer — “It’s man’s fault”.
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Some land is rising in Alaska, as the ice melts off of it . . . but I don’t think a rational person would claim that sea levels are rising anywhere in the U.S., nor anywhere else. You’ve never heard of New Orleans?
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Ed,
Sea level is going down around North America
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Ed
Negation negation.
“…you HAVEN’T proven anything…”
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That would be a natural occurrence if water were rising . . . what are you trying to say?
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Ed,
You have proven anything.
Earth has been warming for 20,000 years – for you to suddenly recognize this is no revelation.
North America coastline is growing, not shrinking – this is a fact.
Sea level rises are slight – measured in centuries.
There is nothing at all that is unnatural about this – nor anything to warrant concern
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So, run it back 5,000 years. We see a dramatic increase, accelerating, in the past 300 years. Is that enough for you?
Take the 20th century average — figure out if the current year is above or below that average. Above and below equal out, no problem, right? But alas, in the past 50 years, above average wins out. The last decade, significantly above the 20th century average in each year, including several equal to or above the top ten hottest years ever recorded. Never before have got such a concentration of hot years.
Ask the plants. They’re marching north. Ask the animals. They’re changing their migration patterns. Ask the glaciers. They’re melting.
As the sea levels — they’re rising as ice slides off of Greenland and Antarctica.
It’s not just one measure that shows warming. It’s every measure, worldwide. At what point does “beyond a reasonable doubt” actually bite? (Yeah, “preponderance of the evidence” is the standard in civil cases — but we passed that a decade or so ago).
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The only cherry picking I did in my comment was one small section relating to your statement that the last 20 winters in TX “have considerably warmed.” The last 20 Texas winters haven’t warmed, they’ve cooled.
The rest of the examples I gave are from the entire 116 year long term record of NOAA. Hardly cherry picking. Starting your graph from 1987 is the very definition of cherry picking.
You’re mistaken on the 20th century trend for TX. The 0.65F you quote is the average mean temperature for the entire 100 years, not the trend. The actual trend for the 20th century in Texas is MINUS -0.05F/decade. The first half of the century was considerably warmer then the second half.
Again, these are facts not beliefs.
Joe
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Dr. Kevin Trenberth, Distinguished Senior Scientist at NCAR, and a lead author of three IPCC reports, provided a good overview of the models used in the IPCC AR4 released in 2007. Refer to Nature’s Climate Feedback: Predictions of climate post. There he writes:
“None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate.
In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models.
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And Ed, if you run the numbers back to 1930, you get a cooling trend, and if you go back another 100 years, it might be warming and another 100 after that, cooling trend …
but for sure, go back 20,000 years, it was most certainly a warming trend.
The is another problem with the Greenie AGW myth – it all depends on where you put the starting point – and there is no right answer to where that point should start.
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Joe,
Good post.
One comment
It is possible the computer models may be missing some important inputs.
No, computer model ARE missing important inputs – there exists no computer model that models Earth’s climate – none – and the models that exist now have not “predicted” correctly anything about the Climate whatsoever.
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Joe, the question put to me was whether Texas has warmed in recent years. If you run those charts from 1987, the year we moved to Texas, you get a 0.52 degree C rise:
Don’t cherry pick the years. According to the scientists in the 1970s, who are misquoted here claiming an ice age was on the way, the cycles seen in fossil records and other records suggest that the world is overdue for a massive cooling cycle. What we were looking at in the 1970s, in air pollution circles, was the radical idea that air pollution had more than local effects. All of our calculations and measurements suggested that air pollution affects weather and climate, worldwide. Denialists at the time claimed that was impossible, that the planetary systems were too big and too robust, and that God wouldn’t allow it.
Fortunately, the arguments for curtailing air pollution won out. Unfortunately for now, that speeded what was happening naturally, anyway — the particulates and aerosols that promote cooling fall out of the atmosphere much faster that gaseous emissions. Over time, the greenhouse gases win out in any scenario. I remember one meeting in which discussion covered just how far glacial advance might go, with the greenhouse gases promising warming after a half-century or a century — “at present rates of emissions projected forward for a worldwide population of 5 billion people with significant nuclear power electrical generation.”
1895 appears to have been a very warm year in Texas. If you run the trend for the 20th century, you get a rise of 0.65 degrees in all of Texas — a century when cooling was expected, from the natural cooling cycles. Most of that rise, I suspect (I have not run the charts) comes after 1971, when laws controlling particulates especially began to affect the atmosphere.
So, it’s clear, even in Texas, humans can modify the air enough to affect weather and climate. It’s also pretty clear that when the greenhouse gases win over the particulates and aerosols, even Texas warms, big as it is.
You may also want to check the harder, on-the-ground records, of what is actually happening with climate. Plants don’t lie, and they are wholly unaffected by political trends. You can’t read to your garden from Watts Up and get your plants to behave any differently. You can’t show “Inconvenient Truth” to your corn, cotton or soybean fields, and affect harvests over the years. So look at the plant zone charts for the U.S. — or any other part of the world where we can go back a half century or a century — and see what the plants show.
Denialists will deny anything, though. We learned that (again) last summer when the denialists denied the heat wave then affecting Texas.
The key is to look at the real data, without spin, and see what they show.
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I’m going to limit my comments to the Texas portion of the discussion.
According to one of the premier scientific organizations in the world, NOAA/NCDC, the long term (1895-2010) temperature trend in Texas is… 0.00
It’s pretty much the same story for 116 years of measuring annual Texas precipitation, although, the trend is slightly UPWARD at 0.08 inches/decade.
The long term (1895-2010) winter temperature trend in Texas is MINUS 0.02F/decade. The same 116 year period of record, shows a winter precipitation trend of 0.00
You state in the comment section that the winters in Texas have gotten considerably warmer in the past 20 years. That is incorrect, it has substantially cooled in Texas during that period. NOAA’s record (1991-2010) shows the winter temperature trend at MINUS 0.62F/decade.
I am fully aware of the record heat and drought in TX this year. NOAA will add 2011 to their database sometime in Jan 2012.
I’m not a denier. The global temperature now stands at 1F degree warmer than the 20th century average. And with the exception of a few hundredths of a degree either way, it has remained at 1F degree above the long term average for the past 13 years. How much of that 1 degree rise is man responsible for is the unanswered question. CO2 has continued to rise while the global temperature has stalled for more than a decade. It is possible the computer models may be missing some important inputs.
Everything stated above is fact, not conjecture. Belief is not scientific. Anyone can access the data at NOAA’s “Climate At A Glance” page.
Joe
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Ed,
Yet you found nothing of interest to find that there were +10,000 other cities where no “new” records were made.
Why are those not interesting to you – if according to your hypothesis, this “warming” is global?
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I hope to get back to the rest of that post soon, but in the meantime:
No, the buildup in Dallas and Fort Worth had nothing to do with the record heat 100, 200, and 300 miles to the west, from whence the weather for Texas cities comes.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. In this case, the wind makes your claim impossible.
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Ed Darrell,
I am going to nit pick you, just because I can and I feel like it .
” Last month, the National Weather Service declared that Texas had the hottest-ever summer – based on the average June-August temperature – in U.S. history. The agency has posted some city-specific figures online that put an exclamation point or two after that finding. ”
” The agency published data for 19 Texas cities in all parts of the state – Abilene, Amarillo, Austin, Brownsville, College Station, Corpus Christi, Dallas-Fort Worth, Del Rio, El Paso, Houston, Midland, Lubbock. Lufkin, San Angelo, San Antonio, Tyler, Victoria, Waco and Wichita Falls.
Sixteen of the 19 had their hottest all-time summer average temperatures since record-keeping began in the 19th century. ”
First last summer was extremely hot and humid where I live. If I believed what you believe, I would say, Ahaaa. But as you have pointed out, the weather of one year or one summer is irrelevant . So your hottest ever summer, ‘ Using Your ‘ standards is irrelevant . Plus as you yourself so wisely point out record keeping goes back only to the 19th century. If I say that even hotter summers may have occurred in the 1700s, the 1600s, or the 1500s, you cannot dispute me.
In the 13th century the Anasazi Indians of New Mexico had their civilization collapse. The strong evidence is that the biggest factor was climate change, like a 7 decades long drought or series of droughts. So my prior point that climate change is nothing new, is validated .
” Worse, it’s changed the precipitation patterns quite dramatically, especially with regard to when the rains fall, if they do. ”
Changing precipitation patterns is very common in history .
Lastly, Texas is built up more than it’s ever been . Couldn’t last year’s hot summer be partially the result of the heat islands that are cities , changing local temperatures?
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Ed,
No, you haven’t – you gave an article.
The data – well, that is quite hard to get – I’ll have to file a FOI request for it…..
Assuming the data is not corrupted, it is statistically irrelevant.
If Texas broke the coldest day, or stayed the same, or something in between has no bearing whatsoever – it is an empty statistic, like measuring the average length of a haircut.
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Ed,
Texas reading is statistically irrelevant – even for Texas.
If Texas never got higher or lower, what would you say?
Would you complain that climate is now static??
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The question put to me was, “Has it warmed where you live.?” I answered correctly, it has. Your response, completely crazed, was to claim there are not data to back up the claim.
I give you the data.
You’re right, Texas is not the world. That’s a dodge on your part, a refusal to answer the argument. Your statement is irrelevant, beside the point — and wrong, if we consider the entire planet.
Way beyond Pauli’s complaint, your claim is not even wrong, Black Flag. It’s just completely absurd.
This is news to you, I know: We don’t need a replacement for Eugene Ionesco. Nor are you in his league.
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Ed,
Texas is not the world, Ed
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I pointed out: Over the last 20 years, yes, the winters here have gotten considerably warmer. Worse, it’s changed the precipitation patterns quite dramatically, especially with regard to when the rains fall, if they do.
Black Flag wrote:
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
See more, here: http://texasclimatenews.org/wp/?p=3124
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hahahahahahhahahah!
Record cold is a sign of global warming!
Greenies ideas are utterly comic.
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There is absolutely no statical evidence for this claim – and, as usual, is merely another Greenie lie.
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No, Ed,
I didn’t fail noting anything – it is merely another taste of your Red Herring soup.
You insisted that no “one” called for Global Cooling in the 70’s – and demanded some examples.
You got them.
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You fail to note, of course, that Emiliani argued we have warmed our selves past the normal onset of a cooler age. In short, global warming was a starting point for his concerns of the human upset of climate — AGW, in your terms.
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Over the last 20 years, yes, the winters here have gotten considerably warmer. Worse, it’s changed the precipitation patterns quite dramatically, especially with regard to when the rains fall, if they do.
Summers are warmer, too.
Oh, there is the occasional record snowfall — here, last winter, caused by a cold air mass driven out of the Arctic by unseasonably warm air. Too warm for the Arctic ice, which neared record lows, but in comparison to Texas’s usually balmy winter weather, colder, for a couple of weeks. At both ends, providing evidence supporting global warming.
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Ed Darrell,
” Right. I give you the global average. You pick one ski resort in the Poconos. Then you claim I cherry pick. ”
I am cherry picking all of eastern Pennsylvania. I am cherry picking the entire Pocono area ski industry . I have seen the growth of that industry since the early 1970s. We are not New England or Colorado. We are not that far into a climate that makes a ski industry viable. Any significant warming and we do not survive. And we do have bad years where the resorts lose money. Again I see no pattern of warming going by how many days the resorts are open.
Also my local lake and local river. The lake does not freeze over every year enough for ice fishing. The last 10 years the majority of winters the ice fishermen were out there . And for the river to freeze is quite unusual and that has happened a few times in the last 15 years.
So are the winters getting warmer where you live ? Be honest .
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Right. I give you the global average. You pick one ski resort in the Poconos. Then you claim I cherry pick.
Zachary Taylor’s ghost is headed your way. He doesn’t like people to libel cherries like that.
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Ed Darrell,
” This is a key reason global warming is so impressive now. When we had particulate pollution to cool the planet, it looked as though we might have a cooling period coming. 40 years later — a half-blink of the geologic eye — and we’ve got what appears to be runaway warming, because we cleaned up the particulates. ”
That is simply not true. Global warming is not so impressive now. We ‘ do not ‘ have runaway warming. You cherry pick weather events at different parts of the globe and different years to reach your conclusions. And you throw in particulate pollution in the US to explain things that do not fit your models.
I ‘ know ‘ you will not hear this, but I will say it . I go by things in my neck of the woods in Eastern Pennsylvania. I worked in the extremely warm winter of 1972-73 at a small Pocono ski resort. I worked swing shifts in a smoke stack industry from the mid 70s to the late 80s. It was amazingly cold in the mid 70s and then in the early 80s. The coldest snowiest winter was 93-94 in my lifetime . I’ve done utility work, since, always outside, so I take note of the climate .
Since then we’ve had warm years, we’ve had cold years. There has been no sustained pattern of change. You splain it anyway you want, I don’t see a warming.
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The insults are getting old, BF.
The report is 40 years old, and it offered no papers from any peer-review journal that I could see that support your claim that any scientist made a firm prediction of global cooling. If you can find such a reference in there, by all means share it with us.
In the meantime, I have quoted for you, above, exactly what Dr. Treshow said, quoting the guy at NASA who gave a conditional wave at an ice age. The condition: That particulate pollution not be cleaned up.
This is a key reason global warming is so impressive now. When we had particulate pollution to cool the planet, it looked as though we might have a cooling period coming. 40 years later — a half-blink of the geologic eye — and we’ve got what appears to be runaway warming, because we cleaned up the particulates.
This demonstrates that human activities have enormous impact on the global environment, and it explains both why scientists warned against cooling in the ’70s, and why we have warming instead now.
You could deal with the substantive arguments, and you could provide a genuine paper, if you find one. But your obfuscatory wild goose chases, complete with schoolyard taunts, are tiring.
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Ed,
Duh! I linked you to the whole report!!!
Sorry, that is not the question here.
Nice Red Herring toss though…
To remind your bubbled brain, it was your demand of “proof” the worry was cooling.
The nice thing of the CIA report is it gives all its references – so have fun with it, Ed.
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Fun to call it a CIA report. I note you leave the year off, but this report emphasizes that climate change is a serious business for our security, despite the claims of the denialists.
Notice that this plays into the scenario described by Dr. Treshow exactly — but it was modified by the Clean Air Act and its enforcement. We cleaned up the particulates and aerosols that scattered light and other radiation, effectively and essentially ending the cooling effects of air pollution. Alas, this leaves the greenhouse gases free to run riot. So, in the most recent update of this report, the CIA noted the terrible effects of global warming. You’re only about 40 years behind the times. Read and listen here, to NPR’s 2009 report on the CIA position today.
That was then, this is now:
Which makes the point: That the CIA studies an issue does not mean they approve of all the science behind the issue.
I asked you for a scientific study showing a claim that the world was headed to an ice age. You didn’t do that. Instead, you cited a CIA study of the effects of such a scenario, but as we now see, the CIA does not necessarily take sides in such debates. They just get ready for the consequences.
You don’t have a study from that time which predicts an ice age. The studies that looked for cooling generally noted that the cooling we saw then was related to the light-stopping pollution, and they generally noted that if we cleaned up the pollution, the problem would not be an ice age.
News bulletin (from 1974): We cleaned up the light-stopping air pollution.
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Science’s prediction of “A full-blown, 10,000 year ice age,” came from its March 1, 1975 issue.
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CIA Report
Click to access 1974.pdf
Summary Excerpt:
“The world’s leading climatologists have confirmed recent reports of a detrimental global climatic change”, noting such things as that the “world’s snow and ice cover had increased by at least 10 to 15 percent”, and “the Canadian area of Arctic Greenland suffered below normal temperatures for 19 consecutive months”, which was unique during the last 100 years. A “major climatic shift” was speculated, which would threaten the “the stability of most nations.” It further warned that “Scientists are confident that unless man is able to modify the climate, the northern regions, such as Canada” to “major areas in northern China will again be covered with 100 to 200 feet of ice and snow”, within the next 2500 years – or sooner.
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Marine Geologist Cesare Emiliani of the University of Miami
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,910467,00.html#ixzz1cfbVTg6h
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Ed,
Not the last time I checked, but it is possible.
The National Science Board’s Patterns and Perspectives in Environmental Science report of 1972…. “Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end, to be followed by a long period of considerably colder temperatures leading into the next glacial age some 20,000 years from now.”
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Ed,
To claim water is a pollutant is utterly bizarre.
To claim Co2 is a pollutant is equally bizarre.
Yes, you can drown in water – that does not make it a pollutant.
Yes, you can die from Co2 exposure – that does not make it a pollutant.
Such idiocy is another reason the zealots of Climate Science are being sent to the fringe.
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And you are the king of Romania.
Who made such a prediction? Not Cobb, as Treshow noted. Then who? Cite the person, cite the study, and stop making false claims.
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Water is a solvent, and a solvent can certainly be a pollutant if it is in too great abundance or just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It kills fish on occasion. Both hot and cold water can kill fish, or just water that changes temperature too fast for the finny guys.
You don’t think water is a pollutant? Drop a cup of water into your oil intake in your car, and see what happens.
One more indication, BF, that there is no fact of science you will not deny.
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Ed,
(formatting issues fixed)
It is not a “claim”
It is a fact that they made such predictions.
It is also a fact that they were wrong.
No, Ed, it is because some of them are the same idiots – they are beating the same cause (man), but merely displacing the consequence (warming instead of cooling).
This is precisely the issue: – the conclusion (it’s man’s fault) is immutable – therefore what ever the consequence (cooling or warming) must be man’s fault.
The insanity of such fallacy dooms Climate Science – and will remain doomed until the junk scientists finally are discredited.
Interesting.
I flew with researchers doing cloud seeding experiments back then.
…not Physics or Chemistry….
Interesting….
,
Bull.
It is not even understood now.
And there is no such thing as a “Greenhouse” effect – since the Earth is not a Greenhouse.
Utter intellectual pollution.
Co2 is not a pollutant any more than water is a pollutant.
This infers a falsehood – that is equilibrium = static ….
The earth is a dynamic equilibrium system – that is, there does not exist a center point, median, or “average” that can be claimed.
The analogy is a marble in a can on a paint shaker.
The marble bounces all over the place, is never in the same place, nor really predictable to where it will go next…. the essence of chaos
…but it stays within the confines of the can’s walls … the essence of negative feedback loops.
Now, you can go up and shake the shaking paint shaker.
Your addition inputs of shaking a can that is shaking cannot be discerned – we are as unable to predict the bounce of the marble with or without our inputs – but your further shaking doesn’t change the confines of the can walls – the negative feedback loops still exist.
So claims of “equilibrium” without understanding dynamics is the first slip-up in the AGW mythology.
By the fact of physics, we know that Co2 has to increase logarithmically – and therefore we know the minor increase in concentrations are irrelevant in the face of other, significantly more influential precursors to climate change.
But this is what happens when a Biologist pretends he is a Physicist, he gets the wrong answers on the Physics test….
!Shock!
One would expect such if billions of tons of glacial ice melts!
Betcha didn’t know that the sea level is actually going down on North America shores…!
Yep, it sure is Ed – but you ignore that….. ’cause you do not even know why… therefore to you, it is impossible.
Wow!
Betcha Scrooge is doing back-flips!
Ed just slammed Scrooge’s hypothesis the CO2 is a “well mixed gas”
Utter nonsense.
No scientist uses loaded terms such as “alarming”…. it is utter idiocy to offer such terminology.
*blink*
One ONE HUNDREDTHS of a percent causes you to panic…..
To put this into a reasonable perspective, this is equivalent of launching a cannon shell one mile, and worrying about hitting a target within SIX INCHES
Or having a $1 million and claiming bankruptcy after spending $100….
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Ed,
It is not a “claim”
It is a fact that they made such predictions.
It is also a fact that they were wrong.
No, Ed, it is because some of them are the same idiots – they are beating the same cause (man), but merely displacing the consequence (warming instead of cooling).
This is precisely the issue: – the conclusion (it’s man’s fault) is immutable – therefore what ever the consequence (cooling or warming) must be man’s fault.
The insanity of such fallacy dooms Climate Science – and will remain doomed until the junk scientists finally are discredited.
Interesting.
I flew with researchers doing cloud seeding experiments back then.
…not Physics or Chemistry….
Interesting….
,
Bull.
It is not even understood now.
And there is no such thing as a “Greenhouse” effect – since the Earth is not a Greenhouse.
Utter intellectual pollution.
Co2 is not a pollutant any more than water is a pollutant.
This infers a falsehood – that is equilibrium = static ….
The earth is a dynamic equilibrium system – that is, there does not exist a center point, median, or “average” that can be claimed.
The analogy is a marble in a can on a paint shaker.
The marble bounces all over the place, is never in the same place, nor really predictable to where it will go next…. the essence of chaos
…but it stays within the confines of the can’s walls … the essence of negative feedback loops.
Now, you can go up and shake the shaking paint shaker.
Your addition inputs of shaking a can that is shaking cannot be discerned – we are as unable to predict the bounce of the marble with or without our inputs – but your further shaking doesn’t change the confines of the can walls – the negative feedback loops still exist.
So claims of “equilibrium” without understanding dynamics is the first slip-up in the AGW mythology.
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